January

Juliet’s birthday (2 January) is always a little overshadowed by Christmas, but we celebrated with a meal at the Orchard – a Beefeater franchise near Evesham. It was very quiet, but the food was good and the service excellent. The Christmas decorations also came down within the week, though Teresa ‘planted’ the tree in the garden, where it remained fresh for several weeks, though of course it would never take root.

The Orchard, Evesham

February

Overbury Bowling Club held its annual meal on Sunday 5 – at lunchtime this year, which proved to be popular move as a high proportion of members attended. The venue was the Beckford Inn, under new management this year, and they did us proud: presentation, food and service were all first class.

The Beckford Inn

Roger’s indoor bowls continued apace, but he also had to monitor his blood pressure after further changes to his medication. Keeping track of the daily doses of pills was no mean task. Meanwhile, Teresa had several busy days, both accompanying Juliet to Oxford and visiting Helen in London.

March

The bowls club quiz was held on Saturday 11, and we had a table with more or less our usual team, doing well until the final round when we stumbled and finished in second place. Juliet’s presence was particularly helpful when some of her special subjects came up. Helen was unable to get back this year, but we were lucky in the raffle and she will benefit from the bottle of wine we won.

Teresa spent some time planning for a couple of breaks she intends to take this spring: a train trip with Juliet down the west coast of the States with a few nights San Francisco (this to follow up her cross-country journey last year with Helen); and a return visit to Lisbon with Helen.

Both girls were at home during the week of the 20^th, and Teresa took the opportunity to prepare a late Mothers’ Day lunch – similar to our Christmas menu: turkey and trimmings and it could not have been bettered.

On Wednesday 22 we went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Malvern – about a year since we saw it last year in Oxford. We said then that the production keeps getting better, and we have to say it again. In particular, there were some major changes to the staging and business in the second half, which we thought brought a better balance to the whole production. It was the same Joseph as last year, but a different Pharaoh – not quite as dashing as last year’s perhaps, but probably a better Elvis impersonator.

At the end of the month we celebrated a big birthday for Teresa, though, as we were by then down to the two of us, the champagne went on ice for another time. But several well judged presents arrived from relatives and friends from both near and far. We did have our usual steak lunch – excellent as usual – washed down by a bottle of Portuguese wine Teresa brought back last year, and quite the best we have tasted from that particular country.

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